Strawberry 9/8

[N.E.T.O.]

We did have a really good day up there on Saturday! My cousin was with me in my 14' aluminum boat. We launched right at the Ladders before daylight, went out and found our spot and started fishing. Was a little slow at first but we stayed put and the schools kept coming around. Not many fish on the finder, but they would appear out of nowhere from the bottom. I think the fish are so close to the bottom that they don't show up on the finder. We would drop down to the bottom then raise it up about 2 inches is all and the "bump bump bump" would start. Very very light bumping is all we felt all day so we "set the hook" and missed many times, but a lot of those times we would hook a fish. We were each using two poles and I think I lost twice as many that way! Fishing was really good from 7:00 till about 11:00. Kent was out there fishing right next to us and we chatted with him a bit, we noticed they were catching pretty good also. Flyfishingforlife was there with a couple of guys but noticed they were not holding their poles right, or their hats were on backwards or something. They were doing all the right stuff, just not getting into the fish. Were you in your boat Mike? I didn't see it out there. We left around 11:00 or so. We didn't catch one rainbow, and had one really good cutt at 23.5 inches, and 2 others between 22 and 23. All others were in the slot. We each kept one to bring home for dinner. I tried to leave the fish in the water as much as possible this time and even filed the barbs off my a couple of hooks to aid in the release. What I found is that I lost a few fish if I let the line go slack (using the barbless hooks) and also that they do release a lot easier without that barb. I didn't de-barb all the hooks that I used, only a few, but I might be doing more of that in the future. We used standard tube jigs, tipped with minnows, but I have to admit, we sweetened some of them up with a secret that Kent told me about. I was skeptical but it worked! (no, it wasn't corn, or corn products...or even catfood!)
I also like those red hooked jigs, but I go thru a TON of them as the hooks seem to deform very easily.
We were fishing kind of towards the knolls in the northern(?) Ladders area along with about 2 dozen other boats. Everyone around us seemed to be catching fish.
My cousin threw a Kastmaster a couple of times, and actually had quite a few hits on it. Haven't had a hit on a spinner all summer.
Anyway, we really did had an extraordinary day!

Randy
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